“A the simple pattern that lies at the heart of this approach to facilitation, leadership and community work.”~Chris Corrigan
The Art of Participatory Leadership is grounded in a simple yet profound framework known as the Four-Fold Practice. This framework emerged in the late 1990s among Toke Møller, Monica Nissen, Carsten Ohm, and Jan-Hein Nillson. Through these discussions, a clear pattern emerged: meaningful conversations occur when individuals are present, participate actively, are well-hosted, and engage in co-creation.
1. Being Present – Host Yourself
…host yourself first with effective practices so that you can be grounded attuned self-aware and responsive – be willing and able to stay in the discomfort of uncertainty and possibility of the chaordic space – be well and aligned in yourself.
What is looks like in my practice….
- Mind-body medicine tools and knowledge
- Getting outside – walks without distraction, puttering in my garden, soaking in the sun with a cup of coffee
- Getting to my mat – Yoga, Barre, Dance Fusion are some my favourite daily practices
- Getting enough sleep – screens off early, reading or listening to a story to relax my mind
- Getting good food in my body – cooking & sharing meals, growing vegetables in the summer
- Finding Joy – it’s every where in the simple things. Music, food, laughter, play.
2. Participate In Conversation
…be willing to listen with genuine curiosity, without judgment and thinking you already know the answer — practice conversation mindfully… take time to speak thoughtfully and Individually it is important to find and use respectfully from your own experience. With the intention of contributing to the whole.
What is looks like in my practice….
- Active listening – moving beyond the surface of words. Being fully present, connecting with their feelings and views, and validating their experience with genuine, unbiased acceptance.
- Pay attention to my 4 levels of listening by Otto Scharmer before & during dialogue
- Thinking before I share – is it relevant? is it helpful? how does what I have to say impact the group?
- 8 second pause, holding silence for a count of 8 seconds (at least) before offering my contribution
3. Host others – contribute leadership
…be courageous, inviting and willing to initiate conversations that matter – design and host powerful questions and authentic collaborative processes with teams and stakeholders — make sure you harvest the insights, the patterns, learnings and wise actions…
What is looks like in my practice….
- Using the lessons, skills and knowledge from the Centre for Holding Space & Heather Plett on how to hold space
- Asking questions that unlock meaningful conversations
- Referencing the book The Art of Powerful Questions: Catalyzing Insight, Innovation and Action, when designing group processes, meetings or my family potlucks
4. Engage in Genuine Co-Creation
…be willing to co-create and co-host with others, blending your knowledge, experience and practices with theirs, working partnership, bringing more diversity of perspective and approaches to the work, creating more opportunities for learning and contribution and growing capacity in the system.
What is looks like in my practice….
- by practicing the three simple patterns listed above, each time I gather with a group of people for a meeting, strategic initiative genuine co-create flows out. This is true if I am being hosted or the host.
- It’s called a ‘four fold practice’ because each practice folds in on one another, and none can be fully expressed without attention to the others
- personally, it requires me to check my ego and need for control, to see synergies and patterns in conversation
- tending to the the subtle connections between conversations, so our resulting actions contribute to our collective strength
pause for reflection
From a learner to a community that learns
As we learn to be truly present and engage in conversations that really matter — we become learners.
As learners many doors are open to us. As we begin to host conversations and connect with other hosts — we become a community of learners or practitioners.
As a community we own a much bigger capacity than as individual learners. As a community of individual practitioners or learners – truly becomes “a community that learns”, that is where we really enter the collective intelligence and the capacity to engage with larger complex patterns and strategic challenges and opportunities.
Facilitator Reflection Activity
Created for teams and individuals to reflect on how the Four Fold Practice is showing up in their work
This section is adapted from The Art of Participatory Leadership Handbook pg. 22 -23 by Harvest Moon Consulting and Associates
